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Dear Friend,
Since March 2025 the prison administration and the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections was aware that Mumia's eyesight deteriorated to 20/200 (legally blind). Mumia was not able to read, including his mail, nor retrieve phone numbers, or proceed with his research and writing to complete his Phd dissertation.
For over seven months no treatment was provided. On September 2, Mumia was treated for complications from cataract surgery a few years ago. However, he remains disabled and at risk of loss of sight in his other eye, damaged by severe diabetic retinopathy. He needs that treatment immediately.
This is an outrageous attack on an innocent prisoner serving a life-without-parole sentence! A long history of Mumia’s 43 years imprisoned (29 of them on death row), have shown that prison authorities, who are required to provide adequate health care, failed to do so, leading Mumia’s supporters to the conclusion that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections has actively tried to disable and even kill him. (They tried this in 2015 by failing to diagnose and treat Hepatitis C, sending Mumia into a near-fatal crisis.)
A loud and determined public response is required to win immediate treatment to restore Mumia’s full eyesight.
Please join this effort, do your part, and share this information.
Sincerely,
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Stop Cop City Bay Area
Did you know about a proposed $47 million regional police training facility in San Pablo—designed for departments across the Bay Area?
We are Stop Cop City Bay Area (Tours & Teach-Ins), a QT+ Black-led grassroots collective raising awareness about this project. This would be the city’s second police training facility, built without voter approval and financed through a $32 million, 30-year loan.
We’re organizing to repurpose the facility into a community resource hub and youth center. To build people power, we’re taking this conversation on the road—visiting Bay Area campuses, classrooms, cafes, and community spaces via our Fall 2025 Tour.
We’d love to collaborate with you and/or co-create an event. Here’s what we offer:
Guest Speaker Presentations—5-minute visits (team meetings, classrooms, co-ops, etc.), panels, or deep dives into:
· the facility’s origins & regional impacts
· finding your role in activism
· reimagining the floorplan (micro-workshops)
· and more
· Interactive Art & Vendor/Tabling Pop-Ups — free zines, stickers, and live linocut printing with hand-carved stamps + artivism.
· Collaborations with Classrooms — project partnerships, research integration, or creative assignments.
· Film Screenings + Discussion — e.g., Power (Yance Ford, 2024) or Riotsville, U.S.A. (Sierra Pettengill, 2022), or a film of your choice.
👉 If you’re interested in hosting a stop, open to co-creating something else, or curious about the intersections of our work: simply reply to this email or visit: stopcopcitybayarea.com/tour
Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to connecting.
In solidarity,
Stop Cop City Bay Area
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Dear Organization Coordinator
I hope this message finds you well. I’m reaching out to invite your organization to consider co-sponsoring a regional proposal to implement Free Public Transit throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
This initiative directly supports low-income families, working people, seniors, youth, and others who rely on public transportation. It would eliminate fare barriers while helping to address climate justice, congestion, and air pollution—issues that disproportionately affect disadvantaged communities.
We believe your organization’s mission and values align strongly with this proposal. We are seeking endorsements, co-sponsorship, and coalition-building with groups that advocate for economic and racial equity.
I would love the opportunity to share a brief proposal or speak further if you're interested. Please let me know if there’s a staff member or program director I should connect with.
A description of our proposal is below:
sharethemoneyinstitute@gmail.com
Opinion: San Francisco Bay Area Should Provide Free Public Transportation
The San Francisco Bay Area is beautiful, with fantastic weather, food, diversity and culture. We’re also internationally famous for our progressiveness, creativity, and innovation.
I believe the next amazing world-leading feature we can add to our cornucopia of attractions is Free Public Transportation. Imagine how wonderful it would be if Muni, BART, Caltrain, AC Transit, SamTrans, SF Bay Ferries, and all the other transportation services were absolutely free?
Providing this convenience would deliver enormous, varied benefits to the 7.6 million SF Bay Area residents, and would make us a lovable destination for tourists.
This goal - Free Public Transportation - is ambitious, but it isn’t impossible, or even original. Truth is, many people world-wide already enjoy free rides in their smart municipalities.
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is promoting free transit, with a plan that’s gained the endorsement of economists from Chile, United Kingdom, Greece, and the USA.
The entire nation of Luxembourg has offered free public transportation to both its citizens and visitors since 2020. Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, has given free transit to its residents since 2013. In France, thirty-five cities provide free public transportation. Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, offers free rides to seniors, disabled, and students. In Maricá (Brazil) – the entire municipal bus system is free. Delhi (India) – offers free metro and bus travel for women. Madrid & Barcelona (Spain) offer free (or heavily discounted) passes to youth and seniors.
Even in the USA, free public transit is already here. Kansas City, Missouri, has enjoyed a free bus system free since 2020. Olympia, Washington, has fully fare-free intercity transit. Missoula, Montana, is free for all riders. Columbia, South Carolina, has free buses, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has enjoyed free transit for over a decade. Ithaca, New York, and Madison, Wisconsin, offer free transit to students.
But if the San Francisco Bay Area offered free transit, we’d be the LARGEST municipality in the world to offer universal Free Transit to everyone, resident and visitor alike. (Population of Luxembourg is 666,430. Kansas City 510,704. Population of San Francisco Bay Area is 7.6 million in the nine-county area)
Providing free transit would be tremendously beneficial to millions of people, for three major reasons:
1. Combat Climate Change - increased public ridership would reduce harmful CO2 fossil fuel emissions. Estimates from Kansas City and Tallinn Estonia’s suggest an increase in ridership of 15 percent. Another estimate from a pilot project in New York City suggests a ridership increase of 30 percent. These increases in people taking public transportation instead of driving their own cars indicates a total reduction of 5.4 - 10.8 tons of emissions would be eliminated, leading to better air quality, improved public health, and long-term climate gains.
2. Reduce Traffic Congestion & Parking Difficulty - Estimates suggest public transit would decrease traffic congestion in dense urban areas and choke points like the Bay Bridge by up to 15 percent. Car ownership would also be reduced. Traffic in San Francisco is the second-slowest in the USA (NYC is #1) and getting worse every year. Parking costs in San Francisco are also the second-worst in the USA (NYC #1), and again, it is continually getting worse.
3. Promote Social Equity - Free transit removes a financial cost that hits low-income residents hard. Transportation is the second-biggest expense after housing for many Americans. In the Bay Area, a monthly Clipper pass can cost $86–$98 per system, and much more for multi-agency commuters. For people living paycheck-to-paycheck, this is a significant cost. People of color, immigrants, youth, seniors, and people with disabilities rely more heavily on public transit. 55–70% of frequent transit riders in the Bay Area are from low-to moderate-income households, but these riders usually pay more per mile of transit than wealthy drivers. Free fares equalize access regardless of income or geography.
Free transit would help people 1) take jobs they couldn’t otherwise afford to commute to, thus improving the economy, 2) Stay in school without worrying about bus fare, 3) Get to appointments, child care, or grocery stores without skipping meals to afford transit.
To conclude: Free Public Transit should be seen as a civil rights and economic justice intervention.
The Cost? How can San Francisco Bay Area pay for Free Transit throughout our large region?
ShareTheMoney.Institute estimates the cost as $1.5 billion annually. This sum can acquired via multiple strategies. Corvallis, Oregon, has had free public bus service since 2011, paid for by a $3.63 monthly fee added to each utility bill. Missoula, Montana, funds their fare-free Mountain Line transit system, via a property tax mill levy. Madison, Wisconsin’s transit is supported by general fund revenues, state and federal grants, and partnerships/sponsorships from local businesses and organizations.
Ideally, we’d like the funds to be obtained from the 37 local billionaires who, combined, have an approximate wealth of $885 billion. The $1.5 billion for free transit is only 0.17% of the local billionaire's wealth. Sponsorship from the ultra-wealthy would be ideal. Billionaires can view the “fair transit donation” they are asked to contribute not as punishment or an “envy tax”, but as their investment to create a municipality that is better for everyone, themselves included. They can pride themselves on instigating a world-leading, legacy-defining reform that will etch their names in history as leaders of a bold utopian reform.
Our motto: “we want to move freely around our beautiful bay”
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Hank Pellissier - Share The Money Institute
Reverend Gregory Stevens - Unitarian Universalist EcoSocialist Network
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*  Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries. Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin: “To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?” Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine. A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism. To sign the online petition at freeboris.info —Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024 https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine. Petition in Support of Boris KagarlitskyWe, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison. Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles. The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested. On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release. The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison. The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences. There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering. Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course. We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally. We also call on the authorities of the Russian Federation to reverse their growing repression of dissent and respect their citizens' freedom of speech and right to protest. Sign to Demand the Release of Boris Kagarlitskyhttps://freeboris.infoThe petition is also available on Change.org *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical Defense Fund, Official 2024
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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1) The Jarring Contradiction at the Heart of Kennedy’s Agenda
The health secretary has begun a full-on assault against vaccines but has taken a more restrained approach to pesticides and unhealthy foods, also MAHA priorities.
By Benjamin Mueller and Dani Blum, Sept. 11, 2025
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, on a visit to a food bank in Mesa, Ariz., during a Make America Healthy Again tour earlier this year. Credit...Ash Ponders for The New York Times
Since taking office in February, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has put an unmistakable stamp on American vaccine policy.
He has effectively restricted access to Covid shots, installed skeptics to influential posts and ousted the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after she defied his orders on inoculations.
But Mr. Kennedy has applied a far lighter touch to what he and his Make America Healthy Again movement have described as the other major scourge plaguing American children: pesticides and unhealthy foods.
Far from cracking down on food and farming practices, Mr. Kennedy’s MAHA commission report on Tuesday defended existing pesticide review procedures and, in some cases, called for loosening food regulations, even as the report promised future steps to clean up what children eat.
To many scientists — and some of Mr. Kennedy’s own followers — the gap between the health secretary’s use of his authority over food quality and his pummeling of vaccines has created a jarring split screen.
“It seems like the vaccine issues were very much like, ‘Go ahead, Bobby, here’s your green light, do what you want,’” said Elizabeth Frost, a MAHA organizer in Ohio. “It feels like it’s a very different conversation and a very different environment around pesticides and food.”
Mr. Kennedy’s restraint in using the levers of government on those parts of the MAHA agenda has dismayed some supporters, threatening to fracture the uneasy alliance between the movement’s anti-chemical activists and Republican lawmakers who see themselves as champions of the agriculture industry.
At the same time, scientists sympathetic to the health secretary’s ideas about cleaning up the food supply worry that he has diluted measures long backed by studies, even as he works aggressively toward a separate goal — undercutting vaccines — that defies decades of research.
“In the vaccine world, he’s forcing change, and I would say that when it comes to food and nutrition, it’s really been all talk,” said Lindsey Smith Taillie, a nutrition epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“MAHA has talked a big game about wanting to end chronic disease through better diet and physical activity, but has so far been unwilling to implement the kind of meaningful policy change required to do that,” she said.
In campaigning for President Trump last year, Mr. Kennedy described protecting Americans from pesticides as a main reason for the pair’s growing bond. At an August 2024 rally in Glendale, Ariz. after he endorsed Mr. Trump, Mr. Kennedy never mentioned vaccines.
He instead emphasized their shared commitment to safe food. Mr. Trump agreed. “Millions and millions of Americans who want clean air, clean water and a healthy nation have concerns about toxins in our environment and pesticides in our food,” Mr. Trump said.
Days before the election, Mr. Kennedy went further, pledging that if he were chosen to serve in a second Trump administration, he would “ban the worst agricultural chemicals that are already prohibited in other countries.”
His early actions as health secretary heartened MAHA supporters. Food companies volunteered to phase out several artificial food dyes in the coming years, a response to calls from Mr. Kennedy and the cultural reckoning he had forced into view.
The health secretary took his campaign for clean food to the states, standing beside Republican lawmakers in the spring to celebrate state laws banning certain food dyes — laws that had once appealed largely to Democratic legislators.
And the Trump administration granted waivers to some states restricting recipients of federal food assistance from using their benefits to buy junk food.
“That is something that no prior administration has been able to do,” said Alyssa Moran, a nutrition policy expert at the University of Pennsylvania. “And it really is taking on Big Soda.”
But a MAHA movement that Mr. Kennedy once said would bring about a clampdown on toxins in the food and soil has recently run headlong into the deregulatory agenda of other segments of the Republican coalition.
The Environmental Protection Agency has weakened limits on certain environmental pollutants, including mercury, whose dangers Mr. Kennedy has inveighed against for years.
Instead, House Republicans have pushed measures that would grant liability relief to pesticide companies and constrain E.P.A. regulation of so-called forever chemicals.
The latest MAHA commission report represented the Trump administration’s most public attempt to resolve the tension between a MAHA movement bent on restricting certain foods and chemicals and Republican lawmakers allied with the very industries behind those products.
The report did say that the Food and Drug Administration would close a loophole that allows companies to add substances to the food supply without informing the agency, a step that Dr. Moran said nutrition activists have sought for years.
And on a separate front, Mr. Trump directed his administration later Tuesday to revive a decades-old policy that would restrict advertising of prescription drugs on television.
In an interview, Calley Means, a close adviser to Mr. Kennedy, said the administration was moving “as fast as humanly possible” to enact reforms and update the nation’s dietary guidelines, even as he said that compromises were inevitable.
“In the first year of the Trump administration, the federal government will enact more food policy reform than at any time in modern American history,” he said.
Mr. Means added: “Secretary Kennedy and many in the MAHA movement have transitioned from advocates to controlling levers of power at the federal government. The U.S. democratic system involves compromise balancing American health, the American economy, American innovation, many complicated factors.”
To the chagrin of some who were partial to the food and pesticide measures that Mr. Kennedy backed as an advocate, the report on Tuesday did not propose bans on pesticides. It offered no clear timeline for reducing the country’s reliance on ultraprocessed foods. It steered clear of other regulations, like taxes on sugary drinks.
And calls for revisions to nutrition labels and limits on the marketing of unhealthy food to children were thin on details about how such programs would be funded or implemented.
The idea that inducing food makers to swap artificial dyes for natural dyes would itself make food healthy was far-fetched, scientists said. Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, said the evidence on color additives was “very mixed and weak” in the first place.
And rather than restricting school sales of beverages like flavored milk that have added sugar, the report instead proposed opening the door to more whole milk in schools, a far lower priority for nutrition scientists. That proposal appeared in a section titled “food deregulation.”
Dr. Taillie said, “Usually when you see something like that, it speaks to industry lobbying.”
The health secretary’s allies also noticed.
David Murphy, a former finance director for Mr. Kennedy’s presidential campaign, called the report a “clear sign that Big Ag, Bayer and the pesticide industry are firmly embedded in the White House.”
The report’s promise to make the public aware of what it described as “robust review procedures” governing pesticide use was “a pathetic attempt to assuage the American people,” said Zen Honeycutt, the founder of Moms Across America, a group closely linked to the MAHA movement.
Jillian Michaels, a fitness trainer best known for her work on “The Biggest Loser” and an influential voice in MAHA circles, said in an interview that she was shocked the Trump administration had taken such significant steps on vaccines, like canceling federal money for developing mRNA shots.
“Any win is a win,” she said. “I can’t believe when there is one.”
But when it comes to “the 50,000 chemicals you’re coming into contact with every single day that you and I aren’t even aware of,” Ms. Michaels said, people could only do so much on their own. “You need some regulatory help, period,” she said.
“Baby steps,” she added. “You’ve got to be patient.”
As health secretary, Mr. Kennedy has power over vaccines that he does not over pollutants or farming practices, which are the responsibility of the E.P.A. and the Department of Agriculture.
Mr. Kennedy has also surrounded himself with unconventional advisers, leaving the health department without the types of seasoned regulators and rule makers who might have been more adept at turning his anti-chemical campaign into government action, analysts said.
“To put the best possible face on it, he’s been outmaneuvered,” said Ken Cook, the president of the Environmental Working Group, which has fought for state regulations on food chemicals.
The health secretary deserved credit for backing those state measures, Mr. Cook said. But, he added, “We’ve had to resort to this piecemeal state-by-state thing because the federal government wasn’t doing its job.”
He added: “Now you’re there, Bobby. You could do it.”
The rollout on Tuesday of the MAHA commission report offered a vivid illustration of the health secretary’s caginess on the causes that once powered his own presidential campaign.
Asked by a reporter about pesticides, Mr. Kennedy demurred.
“You want to answer, Lee, or … ” the health secretary said, trailing off.
He was referring to Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, whose agency has not only relaxed standards for mercury pollution but also delayed the implementation of Biden-era regulations of dangerous chemicals.
Mr. Kennedy’s cabinet colleagues went on to praise the government’s existing pesticide review process.
By contrast, the health secretary was unbridled in talking about plans to investigate the dangers of vaccines. Asked about the report’s promise that the government would strengthen oversight of vaccine injuries, Mr. Kennedy gave a three-and-a-half minute answer.
“We’re changing the system,” he said. “We are recasting the entire program.”
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2) Where Will Everyone in Gaza City Go?
By Josh Holder, Sept. 11, 2025
The Israeli military has said that its planned operation in Gaza City would prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping and planning future attacks. Israel entered Gaza City earlier in the war, but said this time it would move into parts of the city that Israeli soldiers have not previously attacked or held.
The risks to civilians who leave — and those who stay — are enormous. Further intensification of military operations in Gaza City would cause a “catastrophe” for civilians, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has warned.
Gaza City and the surrounding region are officially suffering from famine, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification announced in August. The United Nations and aid agencies rely on the group, known as the I.P.C., to monitor and classify global hunger crises.
Photos and videos taken on Tuesday showed crowds of Palestinians heading south from Gaza City. Still, others said they planned to stay, saying the journey was too expensive, that they had nowhere to go, or that if they left, they feared they could never come back.
In its evacuation order for Gaza City, the Israeli military instructed people to go to what it called a “humanitarian zone” in the southern half of the territory, a thin coastal strip where hundreds of thousands of people have already taken refuge.
The Israeli military said there were “vast empty areas” that were “free of tents” there. But hundreds of thousands of Palestinians already live there, and parts of the zone overlap with areas the military has ordered evacuated.
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3) What Drove Israel’s Brazen Attack on Hamas in Qatar?
Israeli officials and analysts say that revenge for the Hamas-led 2023 attack on Israel, and frustration over moribund Gaza truce negotiations, informed the decision to strike in Doha.
By Adam Rasgon and Isabel Kershner, Sept. 11, 2025
Adam Rasgon reported from Tel Aviv and Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem
A photo posted on social media showing an explosion in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday. Credit...Associated Press
Since Hamas killed and abducted hundreds of Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has assassinated leaders of the Palestinian militant group in Lebanon, Iran and Gaza.
But Qatar, where some of Hamas’s top leaders have been living, was long seen as off-limits.
The wealthy Gulf nation hosts the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East and has maintained informal relations with Israel. It has also been mediating between Israel and Hamas to end the Gaza war.
So it was startling when Israel set all those considerations aside and sent warplanes on Tuesday to try to assassinate Hamas’s leadership in the Qatari capital, Doha, targeting a burnt orange building in broad daylight in a residential neighborhood with schools and embassies.
Hamas said no senior leaders were killed in the attack. The son of Khalil al-Hayya, a leading figure who helped plan the 2023 attack, was killed, along with four other people associated with the group and a member of Qatar’s internal security forces.
A number of civilians were also wounded, according to Qatar’s interior ministry. Israeli officials have not publicly commented on their own assessments as to whether any of its Hamas targets were killed or injured.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented the strike as a part of Israel’s oft-stated mission to avenge the Hamas-led October 2023 attack, and make sure it can never be repeated.
“The days in which terrorist chiefs enjoy immunity anywhere have ended,” Mr. Netanyahu said on Tuesday night, hours after the strikes. On Wednesday, he expanded on his reasoning, condemning Qatar for giving “safe haven” to Hamas.
Qatar “harbors terrorists,” he said in a statement. “It finances Hamas. It gives its terrorist chieftains sumptuous villas.”
Qatari officials have said they hosted Hamas officials at the request of the U.S. government, so as to facilitate channels of communication with the group. Mr. Netanyahu has in the past relied on Qatar to send millions of dollars a month to Gaza, a policy intended to buy quiet and keep the peace but that also helped prop up Hamas’s rule over the territory.
The prime minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, described Israel’s attack as “state terror” in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, and said Mr. Netanyahu should be “brought to justice.” He said the strike had “killed any hope” for the hostages.
Current and former Israeli officials said the attack in Doha underscored Israel’s determination to hold its adversaries accountable.
Yaakov Amidror, a retired major general who served as Mr. Netanyahu’s national security adviser, said that Israel had limited its actions in the past to avoid provoking conflicts or upending delicate relations with states like Qatar.
“Now, we’re saying if you’re trying to kill Israelis, you’ll be killed wherever you are,” he said.
Since the October 2023 attack, Israel has taken military action against its enemies in a way that is more aggressive than before, killing the leader of Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and conducting a large-scale attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
But pursuing this strategy could have significant and unwanted repercussions at a precarious time in the Middle East, including undermining Israel’s effort to expand its ties with the Gulf Arab countries.
Some Israeli observers said the attack illustrated that Mr. Netanyahu prioritized the dismantling of Hamas over the release of the hostages, or the development of a plan for the future governance of Gaza.
“He’s making it clear that destroying Hamas is his first and most important goal,” said Adi Rotem, a retired Israeli intelligence officer who served on Israel’s Gaza war negotiating team until December 2024.
Mr. Netanyahu has said he is committed to both wiping out Hamas and returning the hostages. But it has increasingly become clear that the only way Israel can bring home all of the hostages is through an agreement with Hamas, analysts said.
And Hamas has made the release of all remaining captives conditional on agreeing to a permanent end to the war — a scenario that Mr. Netanyahu has rejected as long as it allows the group to retain weapons and continue to wield power over Gaza.
Former officials and experts familiar with the government’s thinking said the strikes in Qatar were also intended to shake up the long-stalled negotiations with Hamas for a cease-fire and the release of hostages.
The idea, they said, was to try to shift the focus of decision-making from the Hamas leadership in Qatar to other figures in the movement, including the remaining commanders on the ground in Gaza. These commanders, they said, hold the hostages and stand to lose from Israel’s threatened ground invasion of Gaza City, which is said to be one of Hamas’s last strongholds.
Qatari and Egyptian officials have said that Hamas’s commanders on the ground in Gaza have had the most say in decisions about the war.
The Gaza City offensive has already displaced tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, and threatens hundreds of thousands of others who remain in the area.
President Trump pressed Hamas on Sunday to accept a new, American-backed proposal. It called for Hamas to hand over all the hostages at once in return for a cease-fire and further negotiations to end the war.
The group did not agree, but gave a general response saying it was ready to immediately enter negotiations.
Shalom Ben Hanan, a former official of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency who is regularly briefed on the cease-fire talks, said the talks were not progressing.
“There was a desire to move the negotiations along with the only tools Israel has,” he said, meaning greater pressure and military force. What Israel views as Hamas’s strategy of stalling, he added, “doesn’t work anymore.”
There were widespread fears in Israel that the strike in Qatar could backfire, and put the lives of surviving hostages at risk should their captors wish to avenge the attack.
Hamas has often demonstrated in the past that the killing of its leaders does not soften its positions. Earlier in the war, the group refused Israeli demands to surrender, even after its top officials and commanders were killed, including Yahya Sinwar, one of the architects of the 2023 attack.
“He who thinks that assassination attempts can terrorize Hamas and push it to reverse course is delusional,” said Ibrahim Madhoun, a political analyst close to Hamas. “The movement was founded on the culture of sacrifice and its leadership realizes that being in a decision-making position always makes one subject to becoming a martyr.”
Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the political intent of Tuesday’s strike was “to change the structure of the negotiations,” alongside the goal of eliminating important officials that have long been in Israel’s sights.
“It was clear everything was stuck,” Mr. Yaari, who is regularly briefed on the government’s thinking, said of the truce negotiations. “So they needed to change the dynamic.”
That meant making an effort to shift negotiations away from Qatar and strengthening the role of Egypt, another mediating country, he added.
Mr. al-Thani, the prime minister of Qatar, suggested in his interview that Mr. Netanyahu had not been serious about negotiations in recent weeks, adding that he “was just wasting our time.”
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4) Nepal’s Young Protesters Find an Unlikely Partner: The Army
After an explosion of popular rage tore through the country, its respected army was the only institution left standing. It’s now in talks with the protesters.
By Alex Travelli, Reporting from New Delhi, Sept. 11, 2025
Army personnel standing guard at a road checkpoint in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Thursday. Atul Loke for The New York Times
When protesters in Nepal torched Parliament, the Supreme Court and the homes of five former prime ministers on Tuesday, no one seemed to be in charge of a country in anarchy. Then, that night, Gen. Ashok Raj Sigdel, the chief of the Nepali Army, appeared in a short video, urging calm in the streets.
His soldiers took control at 10 p.m., and violent protests in the capital, Kathmandu, had begun to fizzle. That same night, army officers were sitting down with the young and little-known leaders of the self-declared Gen Z protest movement to hash out a plan for peace.
The Nepali Army was the only institution left standing to negotiate with the people behind the uprising. That has put the army, an internationally famous fighting force, in an unfamiliar position. It has never held power on its own and commands respect within the country, but now it is caught in a difficult transition for Nepal.
Harka Sampang, a social activist who serves as mayor to a small city in the east, said he “had come to Kathmandu to talk to the army chief.” He implied that there was not much choice, “after thousands of people requested it.” Eventually the protest leaders told the general that they wanted Sushila Karki, a former chief justice, as the leader of an interim government.
Whatever comes next, the power vacuum will likely be filled by an agreement between the angry and inchoate youth movement on one side and the military leadership on the other.
Nepal’s existing power structures went up in smoke during two days of violence, with the country’s prime minister fleeing and other top officials resigning. The nation’s president was nowhere to be seen. A similar compromise was forged in Bangladesh just over a year ago when a student-led protest movement and the army chose an interim government led by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.
“The army will definitely create a secure environment until the election is held,” said Maj. Gen. Binoj Basnyat, who retired from the Nepali Army in 2016. When be began his service, it was called the Royal Nepalese Army, and General Basnyat shares his pride in the army with most Nepalis, 91 percent of whom trust it more than any other institution in Nepal, according to a poll conducted by the Asia Foundation in 2022.
The people can trust the army, General Basnyat believes, because its leadership is committed to remaining under the civil authorities, he said. It was armed police who fired on Gen Z protesters on Monday, he said, not the Nepali Army. At least 19 people were killed that day.
The army’s deference to civilians this week is remarkable because, as a royal army, Nepal’s used to answer only to the king, even after Nepal became a multiparty democracy in 1990. During the country’s brutal civil war, fought between the state and Maoist rebels from 1996 to 2006, the soldiers were loyal to the crown in Kathmandu and not their fellow subjects.
Almost 500 years old, the Nepali Army flies a battle flag featuring the drums and trident of Shiva, the Hindu god. Nepal’s soldiers had earned such a reputation for courage by the end of the 18th century that British colonial rulers recruited them as a whole unit, called the Gurkhas, into their own armies.
To this day, the United Kingdom and India maintain esteemed Gurkha units manned by native-born Nepalis. The famous Indian Gen. Sam Manekshaw is often quoted as saying: “If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or he is a Gurkha.”
In modern times, Nepal’s soldiers have become indispensable members of United Nations peacekeeping missions in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere.
Nepal’s army doubled in size during its civil war, said Ashok K. Mehta, a retired Indian general who worked extensively with the Nepali military. Its wartime upgrades, he thinks, won the peace, by forcing the Maoists to the negotiating table in 2005.
But the Nepali Army’s transformation is still in progress, General Mehta said. Its feudal history has not equipped it to be a natural defender of democracy.
The tumult of the past few days, when Nepal’s civil authorities evaporated, has forced the army into a role it was never meant to fill, according to General Mehta. He said the army chief, General Sigdel, faces “a very grim” situation: For the first time in the nation’s history, the military is “occupying the pinnacle” of political power.
General Mehta does not see the Nepali Army as being power hungry, so much as uncertain. Its great mistake, he said, was failing to act sooner on Tuesday, when it could have spared lives and billions of dollars worth of destruction by taking the reins faster.
General Sigdel himself is something of an unknown. General Mehta, who knows him, said he “doesn’t enjoy personality and charisma. He’s not a very effective communicator.”
Such qualities mattered little during most of the Nepali Army’s long history. But faced with a bunch of empowered young protesters, Nepal’s generals may find themselves in need of some new tricks.
Bhadra Sharma contributed reporting.
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5) Trump plans to send the National Guard to Memphis next.
By Emily Cochrane, September 12, 2025
President Trump on Friday said that he would send National Guard troops to Memphis, making it the latest Democratic-led city that his administration has targeted as part of a federal crackdown on crime.
Speaking on “Fox & Friends,” Mr. Trump did not give a clear timeline for when troops would arrive to a city he called “deeply troubled.” But he confirmed that his plan included National Guard troops “and anybody else we need.” Mr. Trump added, “We’ll bring in the military, too, if we need it.”
Mayor Paul Young of Memphis, a Democrat, said he had been informed about the possibility of National Guard troops being sent in coordination with Mr. Trump and Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican. In a statement earlier this week, the mayor noted that crime had decreased in a city long plagued with high crime, with the Memphis Police Department announcing on Monday what it said was a six-year low in the murder rate.
But Mr. Young also acknowledged that there was more to be done in a city with some of the nation’s highest crime rates, saying that he supported “initiatives that help accelerate the pace of the work our officers, community partners, and residents are doing every day.”
Mr. Young said that he was “committed to working to ensure any efforts strengthen our community and build on our progress,” adding that what the city needed most were more financial resources, more patrol officers and support to help the police department in crime investigations.
Memphis, in western Tennessee, has a population that is mostly Black.
Unlike most of the other cities Mr. Trump has either sent or contemplated sending federal agents to, Memphis is in a state with a Republican supermajority, which has been far more openly supportive of the president’s agenda.
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6) Secret Report Undercuts U.K. Condemnations of Pro-Palestinian Group
The British government banned Palestine Action under an antiterrorism law, but an intelligence document said most of its activity “would not be classified as terrorism.”
By Jane Bradley, Adam Goldman and Lizzie Dearden, Reporting from London, Sept. 12, 2025
A rally last month in Parliament Square in London called for lifting a British government ban on the group Palestine Action. Credit...Henry Nicholls/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The British government has fiercely defended its decision to ban a pro-Palestinian group under a decades-old terrorism statute, a designation reserved mainly for Islamic militants and neo-Nazis.
The rationale to outlaw the group, Palestine Action, was based on “clear advice and intelligence” after an “escalating campaign involving intimidation and sustained criminal damage,” Dan Jarvis, the security minister, said on Monday. Activists from the group have vandalized weapon factories and military equipment.
Mr. Jarvis said the group showed a willingness “to use violence in pursuit of its cause” and suggested supporters “may not know the extent of its activities.” Hundreds protesting the ban were arrested last weekend under the law, which also criminalizes public displays of support for groups categorized as terrorist organizations. Typically, such forms of expression are protected in Britain.
But an intelligence assessment that helped shape the government’s decision to ban Palestine Action undercuts some officials’ broad claims about why it named the group a terrorist organization. A declassified version of the report obtained by The New York Times said a “majority of the group’s activity would not be classified as terrorism” under Britain’s legal definition.
It also casts doubt on the government’s suggestion that Palestine Action sought to promote violence against people, a tactic typical of other groups banned under the terrorism law, which include Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Members of the group do face serious criminal charges, which stem from episodes that are mentioned in the assessment. Prosecutors have accused one Palestine Action activist of wielding a sledgehammer in an assault that injured two police officers during a break-in last year at a building that belongs to Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapon manufacturer.
Britain’s Home Office, which is responsible for law enforcement and national security, referred questions from The Times about the report to the government’s legal department. Officials there warned that legal restrictions applied to “certain information” in the report.
Government officials, including Mr. Jarvis, have said repeatedly that they relied on intelligence advice in deciding whether to ban Palestine Action. The assessment, from March 7, was compiled by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Center, Britain’s independent authority for terrorism assessment within MI5, the domestic intelligence service. The declassified version of the assessment does not provide a complete accounting of the intelligence that police and counterterrorism officials might have collected about the group. A former British diplomat who now writes a blog previously published the report.
The assessment, which detailed Palestine Action’s activities, paints a more nuanced picture of the group than some of British officials’ most critical statements.
For example, it said activists showed willingness to commit violence to achieve their political objectives, noting the sledgehammer attack and property destructions. But the assessment also expressed doubt that the group would explicitly encourage attacks on people, a signature of other groups designated as terrorist organizations.
“Any such call for action would constitute a significant escalation of PAG’s strategy and intent,” it said, using an abbreviation for Palestine Action group.
Elsewhere, it cited the group’s playbook, the Palestine Action Underground Manual, as evidence that the group was engaged in terrorism because the book suggests “breaking into your target and damaging the contents inside,” advice that could result in “serious property damage.”
“PAG commits or participates in acts of terrorism,” the document said. “PAG has conducted incidents that have resulted in serious property damage with the aim of progressing its political cause.”
The three episodes the assessment cites as meeting the legal test of “committing acts of terrorism” relate to property damage. All were at Elbit Systems or connected manufacturing sites.
One of the three was a break-in in Glasgow where activists flew flags and set off fireworks and a smoke bomb on the roof of a weapon factory. It was prosecuted as a “breach of the peace,” not a terrorism offense.
The Scottish police later concluded that “the group had been focused on protest activity which has not been close to meeting the statutory definition of terrorism,” according to documents obtained by The Times and first reported by Private Eye, an investigative magazine.
The assessment explained that the group “primarily uses direct action tactics” to advance its cause, a majority of which “would not constitute an act of terrorism.” It said that most of the property damage linked to the group “is typically more minor” and that common tactics included graffiti, petty vandalism and sit-ins.
When the government announced its ban of Palestine Action, the home secretary at the time, Yvette Cooper, cited the Glasgow break-in, saying that the group had caused “caused over £1 million worth of damage to parts essential for submarines.” Evidence submitted by prosecutors in court said the group caused damage estimated at 190,000 pounds, or about $260,000, with the remaining costs attributed to a “loss of revenue due to site closure.”
The intelligence document highlights the broad reach of the terrorism law. The ban “marks a radical departure from what came before” because of its reliance on property destruction, said Alan Greene, a senior counterterrorism researcher at Birmingham Law School.
“There is nothing in this document that suggests that there is more to PAG than what is publicly known,” he added.
Many see the law’s application to Palestine Action as an assault on free speech and as government overreach. The United Nations human rights chief, Volker Türk, called on the British government to reverse the ban, saying it expanded the concept of terrorism “beyond clear boundaries.”
More than 1,400 arrests have been made under the law banning the group, mostly at protests where demonstrators held signs reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
Palestine Action, which was founded in 2020, supports Palestinian sovereignty and the end of sales of British-made weapons to Israel. The group has a significant following but no formal membership structure. After the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel in 2023 and the war that followed, the group ramped up its protests.
The group has damaged facilities linked to military companies, including Elbit Systems. Days after vandals defaced President Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland on March 8, Ms. Cooper received a recommendation from security officials to ban the group.
In June, activists affiliated with Palestine Action broke into Britain’s largest air base. They sprayed red paint into aircraft engines and damaged planes with crowbars, exposing porous security at the base and embarrassing the government.
Days after the air base break-in, Ms. Cooper put forward legislation proposing the ban to Parliament. The bill sought to ban not only Palestine Action but also two violent international white-supremacist groups.
Lawmakers had to make a choice. They could not oppose the designation of Palestine Action without also blocking the ban on the other organizations.
In a debate over the legislation, several lawmakers from the governing Labour Party and opposition groups condemned the government for clustering the three groups together. Ellie Chowns, a lawmaker from the Green Party, said it had “clearly been done to make it extremely difficult to vote against the motion.”
Mr. Jarvis, the security minister, insisted there was “no political convenience” in the formulation of the ban and that the government was “seeking to ensure the security of our country.”
On July 5, the government enacted the ban, putting Palestine Action on the same legal footing as around 80 national and international groups that the British government has designated as terrorist organizations. The move had wide-ranging ramifications, criminalizing membership, support, financing and other activities related to the group, such as arranging meetings.
Though Palestine Action dissolved, a separate group, Defend Our Juries, has been campaigning against the ban, and Palestine Action has tried to overturn it in London’s High Court. The government won permission to challenge that effort in a hearing set for Sept. 25.
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7) An Annual Blast of Pacific Cold Water Did Not Occur, Alarming Scientists
The cold water upwell, which is vital to marine life, did not materialize for the first time on record. Researchers are trying to figure out why.
By Sachi Kitajima Mulkey, Sept. 12, 2025
A fishing vessel off Punta Chame in the Gulf of Panama on the Pacific side of the isthmus. Credit...Oyvind Martinsen, via Alamy
Each year between January and April, a blob of cold water rises from the depths of the Gulf of Panama to the surface, playing an essential role in supporting marine life in the region. But this year, it never arrived.
“It came as a surprise,” said Ralf Schiebel, a paleoceanographer at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry who studies the region. “We’ve never seen something like this before.”
The blob is as much as 10 degrees Celsius, or 18 degrees Fahrenheit, colder than the surface water. It is also rich in nutrients from decomposing matter that falls to the ocean floor, providing food for local fisheries and wildlife.
Dr. Schiebel was one of the scientists who recently documented the lack of this yearly upwelling in a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and identified a likely culprit: The lack of strong trade winds, which typically blow across Panama and kick off the dry season in January.
When the trade winds reach the Gulf of Panama they push hot surface water away from the coast, which makes room for cold water to rise from the deep.
Steven Paton, one of the paper’s co-authors, runs a large environmental monitoring program at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The record he helps maintain shows the upwelling has taken place annually for at least 40 years. With that data and other long term records, “we can very clearly say something very unusual happened that we need to pay attention to,” he said.
It’s unclear whether a warming planet played a role in the disappearance of the cold blob this year. But the researchers have a few theories about what affected the trade winds.
Trade winds, like the ones that drive the cold upwelling in the Gulf of Panama, typically form when air moves from high pressure to low pressure systems. But this year Panama saw only a quarter of the usual dry season trade winds and when they did emerge, it was only for a short period of time.
The Bermuda-Azores High is a high pressure system that moves around the Atlantic Ocean, affecting seasonal weather patterns across Europe, Africa and the Americas. A separate, low pressure system, known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone, wraps around the Equator and moves south of Panama in winter. This southward movement, in combination with the difference in pressure from these two systems, causes the force that drives Panama’s dry season trade winds.
La Niña, the cool phase of an oscillating cycle of water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, may have shifted the position of the low pressure system. Hot ocean surface temperatures may have also affected the strength of the two atmospheric systems. But the impact of these factors is unclear until more research is done, the researchers said.
Andrew Sellers, a marine ecologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute who coauthored the paper, said the disappearance of the cold water upwelling could cause “major repercussions throughout the food web.”
Nutrient rich waters are important for Panama’s fishing industry, which is concentrated on the Pacific side of the isthmus, rather than in the Caribbean, he said. The upwelling also supports large marine life, like dolphins, rays and migrating whales that pass through the region.
The lower temperatures also provide respite for coral reefs, which are made up of living organisms that can bleach white and die when they get too hot.
Richard Aronson, a professor of marine sciences at the Florida Institute of Technology, has studied this particular patch of ocean off the coast of Panama for decades. The cold blob gives those corals a better chance of surviving marine heat waves than other areas, he said.
Heat stress has plunged the world’s coral reefs into ongoing mass bleaching that began in January 2023. About 85 percent of the world’s coral reef areas have been affected, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“The climate is warming, that’s putting coral reefs at risk,” said Dr. Aronson, who was not involved with the paper. While corals can adapt to changes in temperature, the climate is changing too quickly for them to keep up in the long run, he said. Sea surface temperatures have risen by more than 1 degree Celsius since humans began burning fossil fuels during the Industrial Revolution, breaking records in 2024 and 2023.
It’s too soon to tell if the blob will return in future years. But if it disappears repeatedly, then “it’s cause for grave concern,” Dr. Aronson said.
There are other cold water blobs across the world, including in the Galápagos and off the coast of Costa Rica, each driven by different air and ocean patterns. As the planet warms, Dr. Schiebel said, other atmospheric pressure systems that drive trade winds may diminish, too.
“Our fear is now that it would also happen to other upwelling systems,” he said.
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8) ‘We took the gloves off’: ex-IDF chief confirms Gaza casualties over 200,000
Retired general Herzi Halevi says ‘not once’ had legal advice constrained Israel’s military decisions in the strip
By Julian Borger in Jerusalem, Sept. 12, 2025
"The current official toll is 64,718 Palestinians killed in Gaza and 163,859 injured, since the start of the war on 7 October 2023. Many thousands more are feared dead, with their bodies buried in the rubble. At least 40 people were reported killed on Friday in Israeli strikes, mostly around Gaza City."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/12/israeli-ex-commander-confirms-palestinian-casualties-are-more-than-200000
Palestinians evacuate the area following an Israeli airstrike. (photo: Mahmud Hams/AFP)
A former Israeli army commander, Herzi Halevi, has confirmed that more than 200,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured in the war in Gaza, and that “not once” in the course of the conflict were military operations inhibited by legal advice.
Halevi stepped down as chief of staff in March after leading the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for the first 17 months of the war, which is now approaching its second anniversary.
The retired general told a community meeting in southern Israel earlier this week that more than 10% of Gaza’s 2.2 million population had been killed or injured – “more than 200,000 people”. That estimate is notable as it is close to the current figures provided by Gaza’s health ministry, which Israeli officials have frequently dismissed as Hamas propaganda, though the ministry figures have been deemed reliable by international humanitarian agencies.
The current official toll is 64,718 Palestinians killed in Gaza and 163,859 injured, since the start of the war on 7 October 2023. Many thousands more are feared dead, with their bodies buried in the rubble. At least 40 people were reported killed on Friday in Israeli strikes, mostly around Gaza City.
The Gaza ministry statistics do not distinguish between civilians and fighters, but leaked Israeli military intelligence data on casualties until May this year suggested that more than 80% of the dead were civilians.
About 1,200 people were killed in the original 7 October Hamas attack, which ignited the war, of whom 815 were Israeli and foreign civilians.
“This isn’t a gentle war. We took the gloves off from the first minute. Sadly not earlier,” Halevi said, suggesting the Israel should have taken a tougher line in Gaza before the 7 October attack.
The former commander was talking on Tuesday night to residents of Ein HaBesor moshav (agricultural cooperative), who succeeded in repelling the Hamas attackers two years ago. A recording of his remarks was published by the Ynet news website.
“No one is working gently,” Halevi said, but insisted the IDF operates within the constraints of international humanitarian law. That claim has been repeated throughout the war by Israeli officials, who have said that military lawyers are involved in operational decisions.
However, Halevi denied that legal advice had ever affected his or his immediate subordinates’ military decisions in Gaza or across the Middle East.
“Not once has anyone restricted me. Not once. Not the military AG [advocate general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi] who, by the way, hasn’t the authority to restrict me,” he said.
In a quote that was not on the recording but was cited by Ynet, Halevi appeared to suggest that the main importance of Israel’s military lawyers was to convince the outside world of the legality of the IDF’s actions.
“There are legal advisers who say: We will know how to defend this legally in the world, and this is very important for the state of Israel,” he is quoted as saying.
The IDF was approached for comment on Halevi’s remarks about the death toll and the role of military lawyers, but had not replied by Friday evening.
Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer, said Halevi’s remarks “confirm that the legal advisers serve as rubber stamps”.
“The generals see them as ’regular’ advisers whose advice one can adopt or dismiss, not as professional lawyers whose legal positions present the boundaries of what is permissible and what is prohibited,” Sfard said.
On Wednesday, the Haaretz newspaper reported that Halevi’s successor as IDF chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, had ignored Tomer-Yerushalmi’s legal advice. The advocate general had reportedly said that the displacement orders to an estimated 1 million Gaza City residents to leave before an IDF offensive should be postponed until there were facilities in southern Gaza to receive them.
Many of the 40 Palestinian victims of Friday’s Israeli strikes appeared to have been people who were unable to move south, or unwilling to abandon their homes or shelters to risk of going somewhere in Gaza where there was no shelter or protection against Israeli bombing.
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9) U.C. Berkeley Gives Names of Students and Faculty to Government for Antisemitism Probe
The University of California, Berkeley, told around 160 people that their names were in documents related to antisemitism complaints that were demanded by the Trump administration.
By Francesca Regalado, Sept. 13, 2025
The University of California, Berkeley, is among the 10 universities that a Trump administration task force on antisemitism has identified for particular attention. Credit...Marlena Sloss for The New York Times
The University of California, Berkeley, said on Friday that it has provided the names of students, faculty and staff in cases of alleged antisemitism to the federal government, complying with the Trump administration’s investigation of universities that it has accused of failing to protect Jewish students.
The university said in a statement that it notified about 160 people on Sept. 4 that they were named in documents provided to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The Daily Californian, a student-run newspaper, first reported the disclosure on Wednesday.
U.C. Berkeley said it had been directed by the University of California system’s Office of the General Counsel to comply with the federal government’s demand for documents related to how the university handles complaints about antisemitism. “Numerous documents” were provided to the Education Department over recent months, U.C. Berkeley said.
Those notified on Sept. 4 included people who were accused of or affected by antisemitic incidents, as well as the individuals who had filed the antisemitism complaints, according to the university.
President Trump has put extraordinary pressure on American universities this year, threatening to cut off federal funding and, in some cases, their ability to enroll foreign students. The government has ordered a freeze on billions of dollars in research funding.
The Trump administration’s main targets have been elite universities, which Mr. Trump and his allies have said are bastions of ideological indoctrination and antisemitism. U.C. Berkeley is among the 10 universities that a Trump administration task force on antisemitism has identified for particular attention.
The federal cuts have been deep at universities in California, a state where scientific research is a critical economic engine for sectors including technology and agriculture.
The Department of Education opened an investigation in February into how U.C. Berkeley and four other universities handled complaints of alleged antisemitism. In July, Rich Lyons, the chancellor of Berkeley, and the leaders of two other universities were grilled by Republican lawmakers, who accused them of failing to combat antisemitism on their campuses.
“We have a solemn obligation to protect our community from discrimination and harassment, while also upholding the First Amendment right to free speech,” Mr. Lyons said in his testimony to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Some U.C. Berkeley alumni expressed their strong disapproval of sharing the information with the government. One, the publisher Steve Wasserman, invoked the university’s reputation as the cradle of the free speech movement in the 1960s, in which students fought to expand political expression on the Berkeley campus.
“Lyons’ public statements before Congress seem to suggest a certain resilience and a certain desire to do the right thing. But apparently when push came to shove, they secretly shared 160 names with the Trump administration,” said Mr. Wasserman, who jointly runs Heyday Books, in a phone interview on Friday.
University officials have noted that there are legal limits to their pushback against government requests.
The University of California system said that, like all public universities, it was subject to state and federal oversight. It said in a statement that it “is committed to protecting the privacy of our students, faculty, and staff to the greatest extent possible, while fulfilling its legal obligations.”
Shawn Hubler contributed reporting.
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10) The Perilous Path to Escape Gaza City
Gazans have had to load up their lives in search of refuge multiple times throughout the war. As thousands were forced to flee again this week, a Times photographer joined them heading south.
Visuals by Saher Alghorra, Text by Liam Stack, Sept. 13, 2025
On the coastal road heading south from Gaza City, thousands of people have begun an arduous journey to what they hope will be relative safety. Israel has told them to flee as it prepares to take over the city.
It is a dangerous journey through stifling heat and battered landscapes. Those who own a car or can afford a taxi are at an advantage. They cram into beat-up vehicles, some of which are missing windows or windshields.
The cars are piled high with mattresses, suitcases and buckets. But many more people flee the city on foot, taking only what they can carry.
As they walk down the coastal road, some stop to watch the pillars of smoke rising from the city behind them. The booms of Israeli airstrikes are never far away.
Israel has been preparing for weeks to mount a full-scale assault on Gaza City. Since the beginning of September, roughly 250,000 people have fled the city, according to an estimate from the Israeli military.
Last week, the military issued an evacuation order telling all residents to seek refuge in southern Gaza. Nearly one million people have been sheltering in Gaza City, according to the United Nations. In August, a U.N.-backed panel of food security experts said the city was experiencing famine.
Many people in Gaza City have been displaced multiple times during the war, which began after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which saw about 1,200 people killed and 250 taken hostage. Israel responded by waging an unrelenting campaign that, over the last 22 months, has left tens of thousands dead in Gaza, destroyed its infrastructure and caused famine in parts of the territory.
But now, people in Gaza City must flee again.
After they left the city, Omar al-Far, 37, and his family built their tent next to a landfill. Mountains of trash loom over them. “You think of going back home to look for stuff, but that could be a fatal mistake,” he said. “And you don’t even know if your house is still standing.”
Mr. al-Far worries about insects, rodents and disease. But he said he could not afford to rent a tiny plot of land somewhere else.
“The rents are unbelievably high,” he said. “We have no money to pay.”
Other people, he said, had packed as if they expected to never go back to Gaza City.
“When you leave your home, you will probably not return,” Mr. al-Far said. “You need to take any pieces of metal from your home so you can use them later to build a tent.”
Everything about fleeing costs money: transportation, plastic to build a tent, the rent for land to build it on, even a few minutes of access to an electrical outlet.
Many of those sheltering in Gaza City had previously fled from elsewhere. As the eastern part of the city came under Israeli control in recent weeks, people moved to the coastal west side, in some cases having to pitch their tents right up to the shoreline.
Since the evacuation order, Israeli airstrikes have also hit western areas of Gaza City, and people there have begun to flee down the coastal road.
Last week, the military began targeting high-rise buildings in the city that it said were used by Hamas, but the group denied that.
Gazans said people lived in these towers. And some said they were struck by the way the collapse of the buildings had remade the skyline.
Israel has portrayed Gaza City as a Hamas stronghold. The military says its expanded assault on the city has not yet formally begun but, last week, said that it is in control of at least 40 percent of Gaza City.
For weeks, that has left many in Gaza unsure of what the future holds, and how best to plan for it.
Some parts of Gaza City have already felt the full force of the Israeli military.
One neighborhood, Zeitoun, has been turned into a barren wasteland in just a few weeks, according to an analysis of satellite images by The New York Times. Many, if not most, of its buildings have been destroyed, and the tent encampments where displaced people once lived are gone.
Around the city, prominent landmarks have been reduced to rubble.
Health officials do not report death tolls by locality, so it is not clear how many people in Gaza City have died so far.
But Gazan health officials have said the war has killed more than 64,000 people, including both civilians and combatants.
Mr. al-Far said the future looked grim. But he said he still dreamed of a time when he could send his children back to their school, “if it still exists,” and “we can live a very simple life.”
“I wish this war would come to an end so I could return to the rubble of my house,” he said. “Or at least my neighborhood.”
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11) Extreme Heat Spurs New Laws Aimed at Protecting Workers Worldwide
Governments around the world are enacting measures to try to protect workers from the dangers of heat stress. They’re barely keeping up with the risks.
By Somini Sengupta and Hisako Ueno, Sept. 13, 2025
Somini Sengupta reported from New York, Hisako Ueno from Tokyo and Toh Ee Ming from Singapore
A construction worker in Boston in July, when temperatures were in the 90s. Boston passed a law this summer requiring city projects to have a “heat illness prevention plan.” Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
For years, researchers have raised the alarm about the dangers of extreme heat in the workplace. Now, as more workers get sick — and sometimes die — from increasingly intense and frequent heat waves, labor laws are barely keeping up with the new hazards of climate change.
This summer it was so hot in southern Europe, where temperatures passed 115 degrees Fahrenheit, that local governments in many areas of Greece, Italy and Spain ordered outdoor work to stop in the afternoons for several weeks.
Japan, reeling from one of its worst heat waves on record, required employers to protect workers from heat stroke risks or face $3,400 fines.
In Singapore, employers must install sensors to measure heat and humidity levels every hour at large outdoor work sites, and provide relief accordingly.
In the United States, even as a national heat standard is yet to be finalized, local governments are enacting local measures. Boston passed a law this summer that required all city projects to have a “heat illness prevention plan” that trains work crews to spot heat illness and guarantee water and shade breaks.
Most of these measures are nascent and uneven. Critics say they are poorly enforced. They often collide with the needs of gig workers, who say they need to work no matter how hot it is.
But the fact that they’re happening at all underscores the scale and severity of the problem. Worldwide, an estimated 2.4 billion people are exposed to heat stress at work, according to a recent report published the World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization.
“Governments are beginning to accept that extreme heat is now a predictable, recurring occupational risk that requires structured regulation and enforcement, not just temporary crisis management,” said Andreas Flouris, a professor at University of Thessaly in Greece and an expert on occupational heat strain.
Heat waves are not new. But with rising global temperatures, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, heat records are being broken at a fast clip, so much so that the last three summers were the hottest ever across the Northern hemisphere. So what was already arduous manual labor — fixing roofs, picking crops, stitching clothes in hot, stuffy factories — has become dangerous. The report from the World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization called heat stress at work “a global societal challenge.”
The report estimated that exposure to extreme heat leads to occupational illnesses among nearly 23 million workers a year, including kidney damage, dehydration and heatstroke, “all of which hinder long-term health and economic security,” it said. Roughly 19,000 workers die every year in heat-related injuries and illnesses, the report estimated.
In Bangladesh, for instance, garment workers told researchers with Climate Rights International, an advocacy group, that the heat becomes so intense inside their factories that some of them faint, or they cut their work hours short and lose a portion of their earnings. The World Health Organization has urged government authorities and employers to enact heat policies tailored to specific locations and industries.
In some places, workers are taking matters into their own hands. In India, a union of women who are self-employed as seamstresses or vegetable vendors offers low cost insurance that generates a small payment when temperatures spike to dangerous levels.
In the United States, only seven states — California, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon and Washington — have heat-protection standards for workers. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is in the process of finalizing heat standards. And a handful of states, including Texas and Florida, prohibit local governments from passing laws that would mandate rest and water breaks.
Other countries are taking slightly different approaches.
Older workers face higher risks in Japan
Wander around Tokyo for a day and you’ll see delivery workers wearing wristbands that track their core body temperature, warn them of heatstroke symptoms and remind them to drink something. Yamato Transport, the country’s largest package delivery service, rolled out the wristbands to 2,500 workers as a pilot project this year, after Japan witnessed its hottest year on record and workers complained about threats to their health.
The 2024 heat wave prompted the government to tighten occupational health regulations. Under the new rules, employers must ensure that workers have cooling measures when the wet-bulb globe temperature, a metric based on heat and humidity, reaches 28 degrees Celsius (82 Fahrenheit). Failure to do so can result in a fine of 500,000 yen, or $3,400, or even a prison term.
This year Yamato also installed sensors to keep track of the heat index at all its offices and warehouses. It also expanded the use of cooling vests, with fans hooked to their sides, to 75,000 workers around the country.
Not everyone welcomes the extra gear. A delivery worker in Tokyo, Masami Tabata, said he refused to use the vest. “I don’t like to be bothered by the weight as I have to move around a lot,” he said.
Vests and wristbands are among several accessories that Japanese companies are offering outdoor workers, from towels that turn cold when they’re soaked in water to shirts that protect against the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Yamato said it has increased its budget for heat-safety measures, although it declined to say by how much. Some companies are offering bonuses for working on hot days.
Japan’s occupational heat risks are exacerbated by demography. The country has an aging population. The median age is over 48. Older workers can be far more vulnerable to heat.
Stopping work in southern Europe
As heat waves become more frequent and last longer, work stoppages are no longer “exceptional emergency measures,” Mr. Flouris said. Government authorities are under growing pressure to set stricter rules.
Spanish law now says that when the National Weather Service issues a red or orange heat alert, signifying high levels of risk, outdoor work should be shortened or suspended. But even that rule, issued in 2023, wasn’t enough this summer, when temperatures pushed well past 100 degrees Fahrenheit for several days. In Barcelona in June, a street cleaner named Montse Aguilar collapsed and died. The city quickly tightened the rules. Her death remains under investigation.
In Greece, the labor department ordered work stoppages in the afternoons in several regions during successive heat waves this summer, when temperatures soared above 42 degrees Celsius (107 degrees Fahrenheit).
Likewise, several regions of Italy banned outdoor work in afternoons for much of the summer. It was doubly punishing to delivery workers, for whom no outdoor work meant no pay.
An analysis by Allianz Research found that this summer’s heat waves could slow economic growth by half a percentage across Europe. Scientists looked at heat deaths in just 12 cities this summer and concluded that said climate change tripled the number of casualties.
Risk versus migrant rights in Singapore
In Singapore when it comes to large outdoor work sites, an employer’s first obligation under a 2023 law is to install sensors that track and display wet bulb globe temperature at the work site.
When the wet bulb globe temperature reaches a threshold of 31 degrees, the law mandates hourly water breaks. At 32 degrees, it mandates a minimum of 10 minute rest breaks each hour and at 33 degrees, a minimum of 15 minute breaks. There’s also a suggestion to “reschedule outdoor physical work to cooler parts of the day, where feasible.”
Sensors are easy to put up. The problem is that Singapore’s outdoor workers are mainly temporary migrants. They usually come from poorer countries in South Asia, and they work on temporary contracts with salaries that their families rely on back home.
When labor advocates surveyed workers earlier this year, they found a reluctance to speak out about health risks, pressures to meet deadlines, and a lack of enforcement. Labor advocates say heat stress remains largely underreported. “Many employers feel a sense of impunity,” said Alex Au, vice president of a Singapore-based advocacy group, Transient Workers Count Too. “Migrant workers burdened by debt and at the mercy of employers for job security feel totally powerless in speaking up.”
Workers surveyed by his group rarely reported of a work stoppage on exceptionally hot days. Some said there were no shaded rest areas.
One safety supervisor, a Bangladeshi migrant Kabir Hossain Bhuiyan, said that when temperatures spiked to 34 degrees Celsius earlier this year, many workers had to take sick days. Employers have by and large become more careful about water and rest breaks since the law’s passage, but there are still some bosses who have to be badgered by their employees to provide the required water and rest breaks.
Government inspectors found that nearly a third of the 70 sites they checked last year were not complying with the law.
Sachi Kitajima Mulkey contributed reporting from New York and Toh Ee Ming contributed reporting from Singapore.
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